Will we all be Angels in the Future?

Sometimes, in the evening, as I am getting my two-year old son ready for bed, into his pajamas, after his bath, he looks up and points to a brassy colored metal silhouette of an angel which adorns a wind chime hanging from the window, "Like Meets," he says. Meets is the name he calls himself, an abbreviated version of his name, and one his Grammy often calls him. The first time I heard him point to the angel and say, "Like Meets," I was not quite sure what to think- what level of intentionality lay behind the statement? Does he really think that image of an angel is what he looks like? But, since that first time, he has done it a few more times, and I believe there is meaning and a true perception he is articulating. So, what is an angel- or more relevantly- what does the typical representation of an angel, depict? The wings, perhaps a halo, the flowing robe, the androgyny, the benevolent gravity- where does it all come from? One thought is that the angels are one step ahead of us in their evolution. In the far distant (from our limited human perspective of time) future, the angels will have progressed and we will be where the angels are now, looking over some species and compassionately trying to guide them without impinging upon their freedom. Some task. I imagine an angel as a guiding force, as a more perfected version of my self untainted by my persona, as a being who patiently waits for me to ask for guidance, who carries the weight of my transgressions and ignorance without blame. My two-year old son is much closer to that being than I am. His wings are nearly visible in his eloquent posture and clumsily maturing relationship with the earth and the mysteries of gravity. It is not a matter of belief or religious dogma- whatever these beings, these angels, may be, it is clear little children are closer to it than we who have trod upon the hard earth long enough to be identified as adult. There is an innocent wisdom in them, the children and the angels, a knowing lacking in judgement, an eagerness to learn and an attention and receptivity to the entire sense world, especially human beings. If you are wondering why you made a decision that shaped your life, or faced a challenge you believed was beyond your capacities to overcome, or dodged a bullet, imagine a version of your self, an infant, cherubic and chubby like Raphael's angels, full of gentle understanding, hovering above and behind your head, urging you to attend, and know it is you and it is yours and there is nothing you can do for which you will have to ask forgiveness, and ask and listen quietly for hours, for days until the wind blows through a chime and you finally notice, point and say, "Like me."